Pokemon Let's Go Eevee! (Switch, 2018)

Weird catch mechanic, but an otherwise enjoyable remake of Gen 1 Pokemon.

Nostalgia Factor: Very high. The original Pokemon Yellow was my life in 4th grade.
Difficulty: Very easy. As long as you are properly leveled, you will steamroll this game.

A friend loaned this one to me, and I honestly liked it way more than I thought I would. In all honesty though, this is just pure Gen 1 nostalgia. I did like the visuals in this one more than in Pokemon Sword/Shield. The towns and routes felt much less empty. It was really nice to see Kanto fleshed out in full 3D, though it was still limited by the capabilities of the Switch

I wasn’t crazy about the Pokémon Go catch mechanic. I missed the challenge of whittling down a Pokemon’s HP as much as possible without knocking it out. Also, the little Pokeball Joycon was disappointing. The concept was brilliant, but the execution was poor. The one joystick on the ball also happens to be the “A” button. You try to make a selection by depressing the joystick, but you accidentally move the joystick in the process, making the wrong selection. I don’t know how this garbage made it through QA testing. The simple solution is just to add a button near the “top” of the ball for your index finger.

The game is actually balanced pretty well compared to other recent Pokemon games. I didn’t have to resort to any “grinding”, yet I also wasn’t super over-leveled by the end. Flying around on Charizard was a neat feature, though it could occasionally be a bit buggy. There were times I struggled to find somewhere I could land. I did enjoy seeing different Pokemon from my team following me around as we plodded through Kanto.

You can check out my squad in the picture above. I ran with a Hitmonlee for most of the game to help with the many normal types in Gen 1, but there are no normal Pokémon in the Elite Four run, so I swapped in Articuno to help with Lance’s dragons. Alolan Raichu is Psychic/Electric dual type, so he mopped up Lorelei (mostly water types) and Agatha (all poison types). Blastoise, Charizard, and Alolan Diglett (Ground/Steel) provided coverage for pretty much everything else. I didn’t use the souped up Eevee at all, but they do give your Eevee buddy a bunch of “special moves” that allow for some type flexibility. With boosted stats, Eevee was strong in the early game, but unfortunately she was a bit weak in the late game without the added STAB damage.

Mewtwo was more challenging than I thought he would be at the end. I had to use some “Toxic” poison cheese since he kept using recover. In the Let’s Go games, you have to completely drain the HP of a legendary before it triggers the catch mini-game. They have boosted stats too.

Overall, I enjoyed the game considerably, and any die hard fan of Gen 1 Pokemon games will probably enjoy themselves with this one too.